Class Three Spreadsheets

Using Spreadsheets to sort and filter information

Class Three have been looking at Data Handling using Spreadsheets as part of their work on Databases this term.

The children tried to sort themselves by first name and then by height. They found it quite easy because each child knew approximately where in the line they should be:

Sorting by name

• near the front if their name was nearer the start of the alphabet
• near the back if their name was nearer the end of the alphabet

Sorting by height

• near the front if they knew they were shorter than most other children
• near the back if they knew they were taller than most other children

Filtering by name

• Does your name begin with R, or not?
• Are you wearing green, or not?

Each child was then given a dinosaur card and asked to sort themselves by name & weight. Whilst sorting by name was fairly easy, sorting by weight was harder, since the children didn't know what were the start, end & mid-points for dinosaur weights.

We then created a simple spreadsheet from the data on the cards, with children swapping amongst themselves:

This gave the children opportunity to get used to working with a spreadsheet, clicking in cells, entering & editing data. They began to see how arranging the information in columns and rows made it easy to compare different dinosaurs.

Sorting & Filtering with Excel

We then opened a more complete dinosaur spreadsheet.

By clicking into a cell and clicking the 'sort' icon (A-Z) the children found they could easily sort any column into order (alphabetical or numeric).

Which dinosaur is:

• longest?
• shortest?
• tallest?
• smallest?
• heaviest?
• lightest?
• lived longest ago? (be careful - children may need help to interpret the numbers correctly)

Some children also used the 'Data > Filter > AutoFilter' function to show only rows matching 'carnivore' and 'europe' to see which dinosaurs may have lived in Bradford!

Web Links

• Natural History Museum - dinosaur data

Related pages: Spreadsheets

Category: ICT, Maths, Data Handling

Author: Mr Kershaw